Originally written in 2003

I stand in the snow in my slippers
breathing in the darkness
smoking half a cigarette.
I am not a smoker
but sometimes I like to smoke.
Half a cigarette is enough.

I watch animals creep in the darkness
among the stark tree trunks,
Nature’s bones laid bare for the winter.
Orion hangs high in the sky above,
looking down on a blue neon clock
and the headlights of cars
creeping along a road far off.
City lights twinkle like the stars above.

I wonder who owns the windowless house
two doors down,
its walls crumbling
and snow piling on the floors.
Someone must own it, I reason;
after all, it’s a house,
not a tree.
Some corporation owns the neon clock
but no one owns Orion.
The birds don’t care;
they roost on the trees or the crumbling walls,
they shit on the clock and fly under Orion.

My cigarette half-smoked,
I stoop to extinguish it in the snow.
Inside when I take off my sweater,
I do not smell like myself.